Rating: 
Summary: Working Without a Net
Review: In an attempt to determine how the roughly four million American women recently "booted into the labor market by welfare reform" are going to make ends meet, essayist Barbara Ehrenreich decides to enter the unskilled labor force herself to do a little old-fashioned hands-on reporting. Surely, she reasons, she will find subtle "hidden economies" that only low-income people know about which help them survive their poverty.But instead of hidden economies, Ehrenreich discovers that the working poor have to struggle against hidden costs. Unable to scrounge up lump-sum deposits for an apartment, for example, they end up paying a premium for their "housing" by renting motel rooms by the day or week. Without a kitchen or refrigerator, most can't cook inexpensive meals and must instead consume greasy, empty calories at fast-food joints. Unable to pay bills on time, the poor pay penalties and high interest rates. Unable to afford health care plans, they either do without or go deeply into debt when they finally, as a last resort, seek medical attention. And these are people who are working! Ehrenreich learns that while rent is highly sensitive to changes in the market, wages are remarkably resistant to market forces and seem to hover everywhere at $6 or $7 an hour. "Help Wanted" signs are everywhere, yet wages don't rise to entice workers. Ehrenreich tries three times in three locations to see if she can balance her personal expenditures to her income as an unskilled laborer. And in spite of several advantages, such as an education, a car, and no children to feed, she just can't do it. Not by waiting tables, not by cleaning homes, and certainly not by clerking at Wal-Mart. The closest she comes is in Portland, Maine, where she manages to secure a tiny efficiency apartment that consumes an astonishing 40% of her earnings. To keep it, however, she must work seven days a week at two exhausting jobs. Moreover, had she tried to remain during the summer tourist season, she would have been driven out of town by the seasonal rent increases. In her quest for a livable wage, Ehrenreich (with a Ph.D. in biology) enters a world in which she is referred to primarily as "baby, honey, blondie, or girl." She meets the maids, clerks, attendants, and short-order cooks who make up the backbone of the nation's indispensable service economy. Although Ehrenreich claims, oddly, that no one she met during her investigation was homeless, some are living in vans and in the backs of pickup trucks. Those with actual roofs over their heads are typically crammed into one- or two-bedroom apartments along with half a dozen friends, acquaintances or relatives. At one point, Ehrenreich tries to get public assistance. She spends 70 minutes and nearly $3 in phone tolls ultimately to receive a voucher for only $7 worth of food. So much of the national safety net. Despite the grimness of the overall picture, Ehrenriech reveals it to us with a self-effacing humor that keeps her tone sympathetic but not sentimental, potent but not preachy. Nickel and Dimed is an exquisitely well-written book with linguistic gems on every page. The book is also packed with gee-whiz insights into a world that many of us touched upon only briefly in high school and college, back when someone else was still responsible for the bulk of our upkeep. This book is humbling, informative, inspiring and even funny. Highly recommended reading.
Rating:
Summary: Invisibility & Transcendence
Review: I found Barbara Ehrenreich's book particularly fascinating because it overlapped my own experience--as a chambermaid, a nanny, a transcriptionist, a retail sales clerk, and even, to some extent, as a technical writer (work which is said to require a college degree but in fact does not). Except for the chambermaid's job which I held one summer in college, all the rest of these (& several other jobs I won't mention) were my lot as out-of-work college professor in the years of the so-called Reagan prosperity. Like Ehrenreich, I, too, had a Ph.D. (mine was in English) and expected that my philosophical view of the world, analytical skills, and advanced vocabulary would draw attention to me as a person educated beyond the requirements of the job. In fact, these qualities were invisible to co-workers, customers, clients. Like her, I became a "girl" whose image for others was shaped by the preconceptions they had about the job and what kind of person would be working it. Anyone who thinks the patriarchy is dead (brought to the mat by Women's Liberations) need only take a job in any field dominated by male managers, entrepreneurs, or professionals. I could only be grateful that I was too old to be subject to sexual harassment, but the psychological put-downs know no age limit. I most identified with Ehrenreich's initial fear that someone would notice she didn't quite "fit in" with her co-workers and must be (as she in fact was, I wasn't) some sort of spy. Her relief and chagrin when no one noticed, when in fact she became as invisible as her co-workers, were emotions I shared. After all, I needed to be working and I didn't want to "stand out"! Though her approach to her self-assigned task is one of apparently total candor, the one thing Ehrenreich does not mention that makes all the difference in the world is that one is WRITING IT DOWN. In my case, I kept a journal throughout my working life and on my last job, as a retail manager, wrote 120 poems about my experiences. Knowing that I was going to write it down gave me a means of transcending the almost-daily humiliations, which, coupled with the physical exhaustion of some of these jobs (not to mention the boredom) would be enough to bring some people to the brink of suicide. I'm sure that Ehrenreich often had the experience, as I did, of looking gleefully at some stupid person who had just tried to "put her down" (like the woman who chided her while she was scrubbing a floor on her knees) because this person had just provided her with a choice bit for that night's journal entry and, ultimately, in her case, for her book. In fact, I believe Ehrenreich would agree that the chief virtue of an education is that it gives you the skills you need to analyze what is happening to you and write it down. This is your means to transcendence and in her case at least, triumph. I've no doubt that her book will make a difference in the lot of working women in America, and, believe me, these women at the bottom of the labor pool need all the advocates they can get. Write on, Ehrenreich, write on!
Rating: 
Summary: Nickeled and Dimed-a lack of common sense
Review: I am not a caveman conservative who believes that hard work regularly pulls one out of the lower economic class. For those with average talents, a lack of early socialization, in particular, makes a modest lifestyle extremely difficult. From published reviews, I looked forward to Ms. Ehrenreich's book for graphic documentation on how hard and unrewarding, and often degrading, most low paying/minimum wage work is. I expected her, given the time she expended in her experiment, to make a reasonable effort to see if she could survive-regardless of whatever that proves. Unfortunately, in her new life as a worker, Ms. Ehrenreich made stupid decisions and was destined to fail. For example, she seeks to work and live in urban areas where housing expenses are high. She quit jobs quickly and traveled long distances, at relatively considerable expense, looking for work. The minimum wage jobs are, I believe, just as abundant in moderately small towns, where housing costs are much lower. Ms. Ehrenreich also chose to live alone. As virtually every college student does, she could have found one or two roommates to greatly reduce expenses. The author, seeking to work two jobs at once, choose only physically demanding jobs-such as motel housekeeping. She, understandably, could not cope. Why didn't she pick at least one physically less demanding job--such as a receptionist. These jobs are not hard to find-anyone who shows up to work regularly, treats everyone politely, etc. will quickly go to a modestly higher paying position in most offices. I've seen it happen many times. (I don't pretend these suggestions would necessarily, or likely, lead to a satisfying life style, but the author, a native speaker with assumed high socialization skills, having no health problems or dependants, could have survived). Ms. Ehrenreich didn't use her prior socialization skills. Perhaps she might argue that using such skills would make the results of her experiences irrelevant to the common worker. I would agree. In any event, the purpose of her book is muddled. While the book was fairly interesting, I think many reviewers simply rate the book high since it addresses (adequately or not) an important and interesting topic. What are the odds that this book would have appealed to anyone if she had reported that one can survive, much less advance, starting with a minimum wage job? Zero. Liberals, such as myself (believe it or not) would have contended the book was written by a right-wing conservative with an agenda, or, that Ms. Ehrenreich had social skills that make her triumph irrelevant to the common worker. We would not have purchased the book. Conservatives, who couldn't care less about the topic, would not have purchased the book in any event. Accordingly, Ms. Ehrenriech ("Dr." Ehrenriech to middle class jokers who would use such an irrelevant title for an undistinguished biology PhD. attemting socialogy), wouldn't have made a dime off her book. The results of her flawed socialogical experiment will make her hundreds of thousands (minimum) on her hardback best seller. She had zero incentive to make a reasonable effort to survive as a minimum wage worker. She was able to return to the real world (of Amazon reviewers) and further support her Yuppie lifestyle due to a common sense ability to make $$$$$ on a book. An "important book" would have simply followed an actual minimum wage worker's attempt at surviving or succeeding. "Doctor" Ehrenriech's book merely sets back the effort to show, to open-minded moderates, that conservative dogma on economic advancement is largely a myth.
Rating:
Summary: excellent
Review: Well crafted snapshot of what the real world is like for many, many Americans. I read the whole book in two sittings and wished for more.
Rating:
Summary: The most important book of the year
Review: I finished reading this book yesterday, and, out of curiosity, came to Amazon to see what the reviews were like. As I expected, most of the reviews were 4 or 5 stars. It's a wonderful book. But the 1-star reviews are fascinating. If you've read the book, it's pretty obvious that only one of the 1-star reviewers shows any sign of MAYBE having read the book. The rest of them just saw a review somewhere, or perhaps heard Dr. Ehrenreich speak on t.v. and the idea of someone speaking up for the working poor scared them so badly, shook their bigotry so deeply, that they had to strike back by trashing a book they didn't even bother to read. The vehemence of those people, their readiness to attack the most vulnerable people in this country tells you why this book is so important. The truth - which you'll hear again and again from people who've actually read the book - is that this is a book that every American citizen ought to read. And - lucky us - it's one of those rare "must read" books that is also compelling, beautifully written, and impossible to put down. You can't read this book and not change the way you look at the world. I was raised by a single mother who worked poorly paid jobs all her life and in high school and college I worked several of those jobs myself, so I consider myself pretty sensitive to the difficulty of low wage workers' jobs and lives. But this book shocked even me. The last time I worked for the minimum wage, in the mid-seventies, it was hand to mouth, but I could get by. I had to go to work with the flu a few times because I had no sick days and couldn't afford the loss of a day's pay, but as long as I showed up for work every day, I could pay my rent and buy food. Not much of it, and most of it pasta and rice, but I could at least survive. After reading Dr. Ehrenreich's book, I realize that's not even possible anymore. The poverty I knew thirty years ago doesn't even begin to compare with what people in the same circumstances face today. But Dr. Ehrenreich is not just insightful when she's dealing with the economic difficulties in poor people's lives. This is one of the few non-fiction books I've ever read that shows a real insight into the psychology of poverty - the way it strips people of their dignity, their energy, and, in many cases, their ability to fight back. Again and again, as I read the book, I was reminded of all the daily indignities you experience as a poor person, and how those indignities act as a means of social control - and my experiences as a poor person came before employers got really expert at stripping away people's dignity with things like urine tests and invasive psychological profiles. I think Dr. Ehrenreich made one slip in writing this book. She says that she decided to keep her car, even though many working poor people have to get by without one, because she thought a book about sitting around waiting for buses would be pretty boring. Maybe. But her choice made her miss one important psychological insight. Spend too much of your life waiting for buses - which in many cases just pass you by because they're already packed - and that becomes the central fact of your life. You wait for things, and if nothing comes, you wait some more. People learn the skills life teaches them, and having to depend on buses teaches people an inordinate patience that can be hard to shake off. You will find it impossible not to care about the people in this book. If you've bought any of the current cliches about poverty stemming from laziness, addictions, or poor choices in life, be prepared to have your prejudices blown away. As I read this book, I found myself constantly aware of the people I depend on every day, wondering about their lives. And, most important, wondering what I can do to make them better. I don't know the answer. A lot of the 1-star reviewers suggest that Dr. Ehrenreich gives some "socialistic" answer to the problem, but in fact, she doesn't offer a solution at all. All she does is remind us vividly and unforgettably that there is a problem, an urgent problem, and that we'd better begin figuring out ways to solve it. She reminds us of our common humanity. And we owe her our gratitude for that.
Rating: 
Summary: Worthy Social Cause - Slightly misses the mark
Review: This book is an interesting and easy read. "Barb" as her alter ego came to be known while working at Wal-mart, set out to tell the story of a typical middle-age divorcee trying to cut it off of Welfare. And as most of us might expect, she proves that it can be done if you are really lucky, are in good health, and you always have a way out. At any point in this novel, the author could have ducked out - well... in a way she did... every time she discovered she couldn't make her rent, she just quit her jobs, picked up and started over. Don't get me wrong, I admire her pluck. But throughout the entire book, I got the feeling that she was more interested in whether she could do it than what the true plight of our fellow Americans really is. And she certainly never made any indication that she wished to learn how to improve the lives of people who find themselves in this situation. Honestly, nothing shocked me about this book. ...Despite the occasional itch that Barb gave me (at one point she mentioned that she now could understand what it was like to be black!... talk about rankling the reader). I enjoyed this book, it is well-written, and the research included is excellent. I was a bit disappointed that she never touched on the subject of bettering your socio-economic position through education. But what I want to know is, what was her purpose in writing this? It seems to me that the intended audience is the middle and upper class...
Rating:
Summary: A Good Read, but Not Enough
Review: While I found the subject matter and the attempt at the "investigative experiment" quite interesting, I was disappointed that there was not enough of an effort to actually get into the lives of her coworkers. I would have preferred less statistical quotations about the working poor, and more of a personal account by more in-depth interviews and exploration of personal histories and life experiences. While an account of the author's attempts to provide a living for herself on her limited income was thought-provoking, it lacked the sense of realism that the description of her coworkers and other acquaintances along the way could have provided. I am not sorry that I read the book; I am just sorry that I didn't wait for the paperback version.
Rating:
Summary: A compulsively readable book that exposes a national scandal
Review: I found this book completely riveting. I could not tear myself away - even while I was walking down the street I continued to read it! What makes this book so compelling? Well, the premise is almost irresistible. You've heard of "reality TV?" This is "reality journalism." Acclaimed journalist Barbara Ehrenreich goes "undercover" in a variety of low-wage jobs: waitress, maid, health care worker, sales "associate." How will she survive? What is it like to do work at one of these jobs? What kind of living and working conditions must she and her fellow employees endure? But it's more than the premise. The writing is also quite wonderful. Ehrenreich has a great BS detector, and she's wickedly funny in describing bizarre, quasi-totalitarian corporate rituals such as training videos and drug and personality tests. She writes with grit, humor and compassion about a sector of society that is virtually invisible in mainstream media: the nearly one-third of the workers who can be classified as "working poor." You'll learn a lot from reading this book. I never realized, for example, how physically difficult low-wage labor often is (it frequently leads to serious chronic health problems). Nor did I understand how mentally challenging it can be (YOU try to remember dinner and drink orders for a table of ten different people!). Nor did I realize the disturbing degree to which corporate America has perfected the techniques of surveillance and control, and the shocking extent to which workers are forced to relinquish their rights in the workplace (do you know that an employer has the legal right to search your purse at any time for any reason?) Ehrenreich makes abundantly clear that even at wages slightly above the minimum, it is impossible to live at even a basic level of decency. She shows us that the condition of low-wage workers in this country is a scandal. While reading, I keep asking myself, why? From my studies and my work, I know that it doesn't have to be this way. Many other countries have much stronger, more highly unionized workforces that fight for workers' rights. They also have public policies - such as universal health care; universal, high-quality child care; family allowances; wage supplements, etc. - that step in and give much-needed support to workers and families when the free market fails. All of these countries - and I'm speaking mainly of Western Europe and Scandinavia - are democracies, and none of them are poor. On the contrary, they enjoy some of the highest standards of living in the world and are the home to countless thriving businesses and many, many very wealthy people (in spite of tax rates that in the U.S. would be considered unacceptably high). These policies exist, and they work - citizens in countries from France to Denmark are healthy, well-educated, and productive. These societies don't have the truly breathtaking degree of income inequality that we have here in the U.S. (which, as the economist Robert H. Frank has pointed out, has been disastrous not only for the poor but for the middle class, in areas that range from education to housing). We are the wealthiest country in the world. Why have we failed so abysmally in the simple task of treating our poor and low-wage workers honorably and humanely? Ehrenreich will not answer that question for you (and, in truth, it's probably impossible to answer it persuasively). Ehrenreich's gift is in telling stories, and showing you how people actually live. You can go to other sources for details on statistics and policy. I do hold out some hope that this book may help change the condition of low-wage workers in this country. It seems to be hitting a chord, to be getting people where they live: in their hearts, in their basic sense of fairness and decency. At the very least, Ehrenreich has succeeded in getting a debate going. The next step will be changing the reality.
Rating:
Summary: Great for your Book Discussion Group!
Review: I could relate to much of the author's experiences having done menial jobs in highschool and college. I worked side-by-side with the same hard-working folks! I think what surprised me most was the condescending way many of the employers treated their employees, as if they were children! And also dispensible! I don't think there is a simple solution to the economic inequalities in our country. The prevailing challenge in the author's sojourn into the "real world" seemed to be finding affordable housing. I think creating subsidized or low-income housing would be extremely beneficial. It's terrible the way she had to live in a motel (as many folks have to do). The thoughts that strongly came to mind as I was reading this wonderful expose were: 1)How very important a college or even a vocational education is. This would give the working poor so many other options! 2)"No man is an island"...meaning, we need one another! During the Depression, families stuck together and helped each other out! I think it's too easy to rely on government hand-outs and not on one another. We who have plenty need to be giving food to food banks and donating to charities like Union Gospel Mission, that truly help the poor. Native-born Americans need to examine the way new immigrants work and help each other out. Vietnamese and Chinese immigrants are a good example. They help one another get through college, borrow money to help a sibling start a business, shelter their aging parents, pool their money together to buy a house, etc. And they are often successful as they intrinsically know that education is the way out of poverty and the way to acquiring dignity. What can WE learn from them? As you can see, this book will provide some wonderful food for thought and generate some lively discussions!
Rating:
Summary: It really depends upon your point of view...
Review: If you see the world in terms of bad vs good, then this book is for you. If you see the world as rich vs. poor, then this book is for you. If you see the world as victimizer vs. victim , then this is your book. However, if you see things in terms of grays, or in terms of not everyone who works minimum wage are hard working and noble, and not everyone who hires minimun wage workers are hard hearted exploitive people, then this book might irritate you. If you believe that some people who work minimum wage jobs may be the victim of circumstance, and others may be people whose own behavior may be part of the reason they are working such jobs, then this book might irritate you. Barbara Ehrenreich writes for the former; she has the victimizer vs. victim world view and has authored a well written scenario to support her view. There all sorts of reason why some people are working poorly paying jobs. How outraged you are about the situation and the solution that you believe are available to change the situation are closely connected to your world view. This is a well written, entertaining book. But it is more about a middle class PhD. (who finds it necessary to mention her degree three times in the book) who takes jobs she clearly believes are beneath her. It is an honest account of how she handles it (not well); it is not an honest discussion about the proposed subject.
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